Tag Archives: future

One of the hardest things to do is say goodbye. The act itself is easy; it’s a two-syllable word. But the meaning behind it is more difficult.

GFN started a couple years ago as a way to bring people together. For quite a while, it accomplished that goal. Unfortunately, when we lost internet for three months at the end of last year, it became difficult to follow up on certain aspects of running the site. Most of that responsibility falls on my shoulders. Nonetheless, we kept things going through most of 2014 — but by the end, we were sputtering to the finish. The simple truth is that some folks struggle to maintain one site, and trying to administrate two was too daunting of a task.

So the time has come to shut down Geek Force Network. The site’s not going to be deleted or anything; I’m just removing the custom domain to avoid paying for it each year. All of the posts should still look the same. I’ll keep an eye on comments to make sure a flood of penis-related content doesn’t burst through. But it will no longer be updated.

For everyone who contributed throughout GFN’s lifespan, I thank you. That includes all of the authors for our site, but also anyone who stopped by to read an article or leave their thoughts. Because of the vast collection of personalities and topics we put together, we also got a great response from the community. It was cool to see.

A special thanks should go out to simpleek and cary, who were here when we opened up shop and stayed through the bitter end. I can’t provide adequate words to describe their professionalism and integrity. You should definitely go follow each of their blogs if you haven’t already, because their content will continue over there.

And now, before they start playing that weird song when award-winners go way over their allotted time, we say goodbye. GFN achieved many of its goals and came up short in others, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

(NOTE: If you submitted a post to GFN at any time during its lifespan, I’m not going to hold them hostage here or anything. You’re free to take any of your content and post it on your own sites now, for archive purposes or just to add even more articles. YOU ARE ALL FREE NOW.)

My pre-teen niece recently celebrated another birthday. Prior to the festivities, I asked her what she was hoping to get.

“A typewriter!” came the enthusiastic response.

Taken aback, I paused. “Like… a computer?”

“No…a typewriter,” she repeated as if I had become deaf, and dumb.

“Oh. A typewriter. But why?” I queried.

She didn’t skip a beat. “Because they are cool.”

Well, duh.

Still, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the image of an young, modern girl sitting down to formulate a document via and old-fashioned typewriter, but what did I know. The fact that she even knew what a typewriter was floored me. But it became a strangely proud moment as I considered “hey, my niece knows what a typewriter is! Take that iPad society!”

It also got me thinking about the notion of “future retro,” which I might have just made up or might actually be a thing. Either way, when I say “future retro” I mean: what items of the recent past may someday become the “cool” things of the future? Like, will vintage-minded folks someday seek out “rare” 2014 skinny jeans? It’s a funny thought when applied to culture generally and in the present, but being “vintage” nowadays is serious business. Blame the cosplay geeks, hipsters, steampunk aficionadas if you like (I know I do), but lots of paraphernalia from whatever “good ol’ days” of your choosing has come back in style – from Victorian household goods such as typewriters to 1950s cookware. It begs the question, “What ‘future retro’ goods might my niece’s descendants someday seek out and call ‘cool’?” Here are a few ideas.

******

Watches/clocks

Watches are staples in any jewelry display, but are they truly a necessity anymore? Same goes for clocks – wall clocks, alarm clocks, grandfather clocks! When was the last time you bought one? For many people now, cell phones are their watches and clocks. Why spend the extra money onannoying artifacts that need batteries and are set wrong more often than not when you have a cell phone that can give you the most accurate time possible? Watches have become status symbols more than anything. And clocks, analog clocks…we’ll, they are cool to look at, but everyone knows that kids can’t tell time these days. It’s not hard to imagine a future vintage shop filled to the brim with these old-fashioned time-telling devices.

******

Landline phones

In a junk drawer somewhere, I have an old, beige, and very plastic landline phone. I’m pretty sure it came from the likes of Radio Shack and cost no more than fifteen dollars. It’s hard for me to consider that something like that ugly phone might be considered “cool” again, but it could happen! Of course, there are plenty of better-looking landline phones out there now and from the past, so the notion of being “cool” is relative. Regardless, there’s no doubt that landline phones will become a thing of the past. Which means they’ll become the kitsch of the future. Shoot, I bet those classic see-through phones from the 1980s will fetch millions! Or…maybe there will just be millions of them available. Either way, they’re bound to come back in fashion, even if there are used only as decoration.

******

Point-and-shoot cameras

Despite repeated attempts to attain one as a birthday or Christmas gift in high school, I never received my own camera. Well, I know I’ll be able to rectify that in forty years because the vintage shops will be full of those little point-and-shoot babies! In the not so distant past, point-and-shoot cameras were dime-a-dozen, and they came in as many styles as there are stars in the sky! Right now, many photo enthusiasts are favoring older style cameras, early 20th century models completed with glass slides, black sheets, and flash bulbs the size of small animals. So it’s only a matter of time before the point-and-shoot film guzzlers enters the realm of vintage rediscovery. And never mind the film, because our future selves will no doubt be well-versed in the ways of retrofitting and repurposing.

******

What instances of recent past or current tech do you think will become the retro goodies of the future?

Episode 146: Such Buzzer. Much Beater. Wow. — The gang shrinks to half its size for a bizarre episode, and decides to pull back the current on some current and future news involving the show, the site and more. Also, Chris takes issue with people taking issue with charity initiatives, and Shaun details his experience with American Horror Story.

Guess who’s birthday it is… er at least two days ago it WAS. Super-short episode for everyone this week, as Joshua’s had a bit of a busy weekend with the birthday goings on and general hustle and bustle of the weekend. As a result, there’s no guest, no format and and no editing this week, so it’s KIND of a Gone Wild Incoductic episode. However, there IS a lot of gushing, giving a rundown on the awesome gifts his amazing fianceé got him and asking attempting by Joshua to get his birthday present crowd funded so he can Killer Instinct his face off. Spoiler, it’s an Xbox One he’s asking for. At any rate, enjoy Episode 29!

While I don’t mind a good, post-apocalyptic film that presents our future as bleak, gritty, and violent, I’d much rather spend time watching the comedic side of our possible future selves, like Back to the Future II (Biff takes over the world next year, right?) and Sleepers. I recently re-watched one of my favorite entries in this genre(?), Idiocracy (2006).

If you’ve not seen this imperfect (it can be a bit too on-the-nose) yet hilarious Mike Judge movie, you simply must; and you must instead of reading this blog post. Because it has some SPOILERS. And also because you MUST see the movie. Do you see my face? That’s not a request.

One of the problems with trying to manage a conglomerate of people is accountability. If I ask something of the people working underneath me, I expect to be able to hold myself to the same standards. Unfortunately, without internet for nearly three months, that hasn’t been the case.

Plenty of folks have been posting dutifully during that span, and they have my thanks. But I don’t think words are always the best way to show appreciation, so we’re doing a little more than just that.

See, I finally have internet back, and with it I’m playing catch-up. We should have at least one new contributor to introduce soon. Regular posting from the ATB crew will resume. And on top of that, I’m going to have a full site redesign done by the end of the month.

When trying to pick a look for GFN in the beginning, I wanted a theme that utilized a splash page. I wanted to try to showcase our best and most recent content whenever someone visited our home page. But while there are elements of our current design that I like, I’m not sure the site is especially navigable right now. The front-page slider doesn’t autoscroll, so some people are probably seeing just one post. The latest post list only goes five deep when we average 10-12 new posts a week. It doesn’t seem like folks are getting their time to shine.

So we’re going to fix all that in the near future. In the meantime, we’re still sticking with the mission statement of delivering just about everything you can fit under the geek umbrella (and what a large umbrella that is these days, eh?). Comics, games, movies, music, TV and more — none of that will change. I just want to put some new paint on the walls and maybe kick out a couple of the naughty tenants who haven’t been paying their rent. And so ends this apartment metaphor.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that things got a little quiet around the holiday season, but GFN is going to step it up in the next two weeks.

And no, I don’t know why there’s a Street Fighter IV picture on this post. Deal with it.

It's all geek to me!

About GFN

Geek Force Network is a collection of great writers, podcasters and video producers who gravitate toward all things geek. The idea for the name was started among a group of bloggers on Twitter, and eventually it snowballed into this behemoth. GFN updates seven days a week.